C899 




A Common Sense View of 



« « « 



BY 



JOHIN MABERMEMU, 



i 



n eoitinton Um Uiew 
of Shakespeare 



By JoDn l^aDermebl 

JIutbor of Life on m lUestern Rivers 

of lUestern Society. 

Jl Book Strictly Origiitdl. 



Part T: Jl Qeneral explanation 
Part IT: Jin Explanation of tbe Play of Hind JoDn 



The purpose of the writer is to kill two birds with 
one throw — to assist those who find it difficult to 
understand Shakespeare, and incidentally to get a gen- 
eral knowledge of the historic kings of England. 



MCNARY & SIMPSON 

Printers and Publishers 

Pittsburg 



THE LIBRARY »r 

e©NGRESS, 
Two Co«e5 REcev6» 

APR. t8^1902 

COFYRMWT WTRY 

CLA88 «^ XXa No. 
OOPY B. ' 



f%.V^' 



Copyright 1902, by John Habermehl. 



SHAKESPEARE. 

Perhaps it will be interesting to the readers for the writer 
to make a few preliminary remarks of his own personal obser- 
vations of this great genius in olden times. 

In the years of the forties — now over fifty years ago — 
west of the Alleghany Mountains the public was more stage- 
struck on Shakespeare than at the present day. 

One could hear his name in the saloons. In the public 
streets young men in mock style would cry out, "Ah-h'm, 
Shakespeare !" and the cabin-boys on steamboats played 
" Richard III," fencing with broom-handles, showing the 
public interest in the Shakespearean performances. 

The compartment immediately in front of the stage, now- 
a-days the most fashionable, was in those days called the 
"pit," not by any means for the better class but for cheap ad- 
mission, and the fourth tier was appropriated for the "niggers." 

There was also an arrangement called the "cock loft," 
which was included in the admission fee, where one could get 
a drink of whisky and have a social chat with a certain class 
of the fair sex. 

To the recollection of the writer a certain class of the 
women were admitted free to the "cock loft" to draw custom 
for the bar and theater. By the way, "the people are not so 
good as they used to be." These girls were very plain and 



unassuming to stiike up a chat with a poor man (piety clothed 
m rags) if he was a clever "feller" to set it up at the bar 

So, under this practicable arrangement in those good 
olden times, whisky only twelve cents per gallon and tobacco 
very cheap, a certain class of customers, old and young, would 
take on a good load of corn tea, with a plug of dog-leg 
tobacco in their hip pocket, for a little innocent pastime, would 
fill up the "pit" to take in Richard III., Macbeth or Hamlet, 
which seemed to draw the largest crowds. 

Thus we have an old-fashioned crowd in the "pit" (now- 
a-days the orchestra circle), where one nearest to the stage 
stood a good chance to get a good dose of tobacco juice on 
his back ; but all this could be endured, considering the fun. 

The question may be asked, of what value were Shakes- 
peare's long, flowery dialogues before such a crowd? But that 
was neither here nor there. To see the character ranting and 
pawing on the stage like a spirited young horse, well fed 
on oats, led out of the stable on a frosty morning, filled the 
bill ; and, in truth, sometimes between the acts there was the 
most fun. 

A boy would cry out, " A nigger in the pit ; a nigger in 
the pit ; a nigger in the pit !" to start the whole pit in an 
uproar. Some would whistle, some stamp and some would try 
their best to see what a griting noise they could make, almost 
to raise one up in his seat, which seemed to be enjoyed more 
or less by the whole house. 

The fumes of whisky and tobacco had an exhilarating in- 
fluence, over the aristocracy in the rear, men would crack their 
smiles and the women bite their handkerchiefs. 

The writer having received a very early impression of 
Shakespeare's plays, at least so far as the motion was concerned 
by actors on the stage, aside from the total ignorance not to 
understand one word of the long poetic dialogues. Like hun- 



dreds ot others, it came quite natural in after years to get a 
copy of the plays which were merely read every now and then 
with a brief glance at some of the plays, without reaching bot- 
tom rock on any of them. 

Careless reading did not give a clear understanding, with 
the conHict of opinion pro and con of others only added to 
confusion. 

With all this difference of opinion the writer concluded 
where there is so much smoke there must be some fire. So he 
resolved some years ago to make use of the fragments of time, 
to study the entire works, with care, without consulting any 
commentors or critics, or the help of others, to see the result 
of the conclusion by merely taking a common sense view. 

Taking the words out of Shakespeare's own mouth, ''What 
meat has he been fed on that makes him so great ?" 

The question is one of shadow and light, from different 
views. 

From one standpoint Shakespeare's works contain the 
greatest amount of wisdom with the greatest amount of non- 
sense that ever has been published in one book. 

From another standpoint his entire plays are all sense, be- 
cause the cloth, the measure and the cut of the coat were made 
to fit human nature. Wlien man was three hundred years 
more vain and superstitious than now, in an age when Bruno 
was burnt at the stake for holding that there were other worlds 
than ours, and innocent women put to death for riding through 
the air on a broomstick as being a witch. 

Some commit the error to measure the world's intelligence 
which does not exist, by their own bushel, to find fault with his 
ghost stories, his fairy tales, his snarled up passages in puns, 
his extravagant far-fetched ideas, his blood and thunder, his vul- 
garity, his useless rhymes and verbosity, without giving the devil 
his dues. 

5 



Others have the generosity to call his plays a bushel ot 
chaff, with a peck of wheat of sufficient value to redeem the 
whole measure. First. The writer, after a careful study ^ has 
come to the cojiclusion that Shakespeare has never been excelled by 
others in his knowledge of human nature. Second. His equal has 
7iot bee7i found up to date in his inexhaustable resources of ideas and 
language. 

His mistake was that he died at the age of fifty-two years ; 
only half finished ; he ought to have been born in Germany and 
lived thirty years longer, with the flexibility of the German 
language and in the swim of the German philosophy we would 
have had a complete Shakespeare. 

After the writer had formed his own conclusion, without 

the assistance of others, he consulted about thirty different 

writers and a work of twenty-four volumes, which has not 

changed his opinion in the least, obtained from a common sense 

view. 

TO UNDERSTAND SHAKESPEARE. 

To understand him one must study the reason and spirit of 
his writings. 

In other words, if we take for example what K. John tells 
Hubert, in conspiracy for the murder of young Arthur, that he, 
Hubert, must hear without ears and see without eyes, to snuff 
the scent without winking with a barn door. 

The explanation is that he is a kind of an enigma, an ec- 
centric genius, a man of a very limited education, who wrote free 
from the heart, in a style strictly peculiar to himself, unshackeled 
by any rules of construction, hit or miss. He further wrote 
with a poet's license, to write obscure, which he often did for 
reasons best known to himself. 

While he was no plagiarist so far as language is concerned, 
for in this regard lies the secret of his success, in an unlimited 
variety in the use of words like an inexhaustable well. 

6 



As it is intimated by some, that whenever he improved an 
olci play, to avoid plagiarism he introduced rhymes. 

His aim and purpose seems to have been to lift himself out 
of the old rut of the common style of writing by moulding and 
twisting the common expressions of idioms, maxims, axioms 
and proverbs, into a new shape, to make his ideas appear new 
and original. 

The result has been to put his writings in a mixed shape of 
very bad construction in snarled up puns, difficult to understand. 

As mentioned by writers, his puns, innuendos, riddles and 
otherwise false construction in grammar were pointed out to 
him, but he absolutely refused to have them corrected. 

The chances are he was right, his style of writing put the 
salt between the Hues, anything very simple has no charm, but 
shrouded with a mystery is more worthy of our attention. 

The writer ventures to say, if some one was to translate into 
common everyday language his writings would lose their charm. 
Men would say, just see how simple! What a fool I have been 
to torture my brain in the study of his plays, but when we must 
scratch our head to unravel the meaning it makes a more last- 
ing impression. There are some things in his plays plain 
enough in language, but otherwise not correct. 

To have young Arthur get his death by leaping down from 
the prison wall, is not true, but for an effect on the stage, can 
be overlooked, but the explanation will not hold good in some 
other respects. When we turn to Act ii. Scene i play, K. John 
Arthur speaks as though he was the offspring of Richard, which 
IS not true, and Lewis in reply to Arthur, says, "A noble boy, 
who would not do the right." When Lewis himself was a mere 
boy, and further could a minor (Lewis) lead an army against 
K John. 

Shakespeare an enigma, has called forth critics and com- 
mentors by the hundreds, some of which point out upwards of 



two hundred points of criticism m the play of K. John, so it the 
proportion hold, in thirty-seven plays they must reach between 
six and seven thousand, certainly a round number to say the 
least, to be in one book. 

It will be observed, however, some of these errors av* 
scarcely skin deep, merely hair-splitting, the mere correction of 
a colon, or a semicolon, as the saying goes, the hair-splitting 
critics, the dotting of an I, or the crossing of a T, which cut no 
ice, m the general sense of the subject matter of the text. 

Which are only of any value to a very limited number, the 
general public has neither time nor patience to give atten- 
tion to such fine spun criticism. 

In justice to Shakespeare, who died at fifty-two, only half 
finished, had he known the value of writings and lived longer, 
he would undoubtedly have made corrections. 

A writer says, that the plays were considered of small value 
after his death, and that four firms joined to run the risk to 
pubfish his works seven years after his demise. 

Which explains, that quite a percentage of errors were not 
his fault, his writings were botched up and doctored up in the 
hands of others. Any one who is familiar with his style of writ- 
ing can readily see what is Shakespeare and what is not. 

Some statements, which have appearance of an error, are 
in a true sense no mistakes when we take into consideration 
that a play like a novel, is not in some cases intended to be 
true, but a plot and words used for best effects. 

Even in historic plays, the skeleton may be true, while the 
flesh and the blood are necessarily manufactured in the brain of 
the writer, consequently for stage purposes the statements -may 
be all right to produce the best effect, and otherwise wrong. 

For instance the truth of the fact that young Arhur in K. 
John, was to have his eyes burnt out, must be taken with a grain 
of salt, and that Arthur got his death by leaping from the prison 



wall is not true, but the portrayal of these facts has a great 
effect. 

Again when Falstaff was thrown into the water, he says you 
may know by my size that I would sink down if the bottom were 
as deep as hell, while in truth, the more fat and the larger the 
bulk, the less a man will sink, which in common parlance is all 
right as the people understand it. 

Shakespeare was a man of very extensive information, but 
in some cases he was misled by confiding in books, in all cases 
however, where he gained his knowledge by his own personal 
observation he seldom made a mistake. 

Strange while he lifted himself out of the old beaten track of 
literature, he slipped into a rut of his own from which he never 
deviates in the least, to put the same flowery, poetic style in the 
mouth of a common, uneducated man as that of a king, old or 
young. 

He puts the same words in the mouth of K. John on his 
death bed, and the poetic style of beautiful construction in the 
mouth of Prince Henry, a boy only ten years old, as though he 
be a learned professor. 

A dying man uses no flourishes in his last words, neither 
does a boy at the death bed of his father. 

WHO READS SHAKESPEARE? 

Most of the better class of families have his work on the 
center table, by the side of the Bible, where the young girls read 
certain parts on the sly, to be thankful that they have learned 
something to know their innocence. 

In small towns they have social Shakespeare readings, gen- 
erally some reverend does the reading, careful, however, to skip 
certain passages with a kind of a dry cough. 

As a rule, the professors of institutions of learning, the edu- 
cated protestant clergy, and especially the Catholic priests, read 
Shakespeare most. 



So far as the legal profession is concerned (according to the 
personal observation of the writer) by no mean stuck on him, 
as a matter of course some are, enthusiastic mostly in small 
towns (where lawyers have most leisure time), but on the whole 
however, his stock does not stand above par. 

The lawyers as a class, are out-spoken, not afraid to ex- 
press the opinion of the Shakespearan Bible. 

The writer, when a law student, was told by an old lawyer, 
''Don't waste your time on Shakespeare, although he makes 
some good hits, but when one must rake amongst a pile of rub- 
bish for a few sparkling gems, the gravy costs too much for the 
substance. Put in your time on Blackstone." 

On another occasion a lawyer expressed his private opinion 
without any reservation. 

What I don't like about Shakespeare he wants to show off 
too smart, with some of his extravagant, far-fetched ideas. 

It must be admitted that Shakespeare is a master in the use 
of words, and that an advocate at the bar can find no richer ma- 
terial in the English language to get a good idea in the use of 
words, to send his arguments home with a force, before a jury. 

EXAGGERATION OF SHAKESPEARE. 

His work can afford to stand upon its own merits. Its con- 
stant renewal of the advertisement upon the stage has contrib- 
uted greatly to make his name so extensively known to excite an 
interest to read his plays, while his poems, without the same ad- 
vertisement, are comparatively unknown and neglected. 

It is the same with the Bible and Shakespeare their con- 
stant renewal to refresh their names, but take one from the pul- 
pit and the other off the stage, and their pages will become 
moldy and dusty. 

In giving a writer a great name there is something strange 
in human nature, as a rule we read a book for something new, 

10 



1 



yet we are the most forcibly impressed with an author, who does 
not surpass our own wisdom to applaud him sky high for know- 
ing what we know ourselves in the wisdom of our own conceit, 
which has given Shakespeare his great name, the credit to know 
what others know. 

It was the German poet Goethe, one of the first to give 
Shakespeare a good send off, evidently by measuring the wisdom 
in his own bushel. 

The saying that the Germans understood Shakespeare best, 
is not exactly in the best shape they simply understood best what 
they knew themselves and give him credit for knowing it like- 
wise. They admire his genius and overlook the chaff for the 
solid grains — and have adopted his plays, of which JuHus Caesar 
is thought in some of the schools, no doubt to uphold monarchy, 
and often play the Taming of the Shrew, beyond a question to 
keep woman to her place under the marriage yoke. 

The question in some cases is nothing more nor less than of 
an enthusiastic mania. 

The writer in attending a lecture of a German skeptic, who 
told the audience to read Shakespeare in place of the Bible. 

On another occasion a clergyman made the remark, you 
can find anything you want to know in Shakespeare, he strikes 
the nail right on the head. 

All true enough, we must bear in mind it is an old rusty nail 
that has often been struck before, the difference, however, he 
drives it home with a clinch, to stand the weather-beating of 
time. 

If we picture an old man before our eyes of general infor- 
mation with a checkered life reading the plays, we will see him 
nodding his head, every now and then, remarking, ''You are 
right, just exactly so, how well you hit the truth." 

But in hiting the truth the old man in his approval, is simply 
measuring to good hits in his own bushel. What he knows him- 
L»fC. ^^ 



a 



self to be true. As the saying — there is nothing new under the 
sun — there are thousands of men who know all the wisdom in 
Shakespeare, without knowing that they do know it. 

But the rub comes in to put on paper what they know, 
they fall short to be his equal, to present old truths in the same 
masterly, skillful manner. To use an old proverb, may sound flat 
like a tale twice told, in which he excells to mold and shape an 
old truth, to a new form, to strike us with a greater force. 

Let us take a few examples. 

We say opportunity makes thief. "How oft the sight of 
means to do ill deed makes ill deeds done." 

The saying, with success, all actions are over looked, "Noth- 
ing is deemed foul for those that win." 

The common remark — Man is blind to see his own faults. 
"The eye seeth not backwards." 

Again there is nothing so deep and bitter as a woman's jeal- 
ousy. "The venom clamours of a jealous woman, poison more 
deadly than a mad dog's tooth." 

A lie may be a virtue. He presents this in most forcible 
manner upward of 200 words, "Bear a fair presence, though your 
heart be tainted." 

To carry out this principle a sensualist, and by concealing 
his own corruption, to preach virtue to his children, may raise 
a good moral family. 

Thus we have only an example to show his stronghold, to 
garnish up old proverbs on a new dish, which might be greatly 
multiplied. 

While he has shown no originality, to get up new plots or 
plays he has excelled others to pick up an old play out of the 
scrap basket, to be a success in his hands, where others have 
failed, by a most remarkable gift of original ideas in the use of 
language, and aside from this his keen insight of human nature. 

12 



Beinsf a keen observer, associated as in contact with the 
lowest London loafers in bar rooms, and as an actor on the stage 
on the one hand, and with the highest royalty, even Queen Eliza- 
beth on the other, gave him a very rich field to gather his ma- 
terial for the stage. 

As our own personal experience is our best teacher, he in 
contact with the lowest and the highest grade of society gave 
him every opportunity to observe the robbery, stealing, swind- 
ling and from his own personal experience the chances are, had 
his pockets picked by some of the London sharpers, to put his 
estimation of man's honesty and fair dealing far below par. 
"Ha, ha, what a fool honesty is, and trust his sworn brother." 

"Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by 
chance." 

THE CHAFF IX SHAKESPEARE. 

This point has in a small measure already been touched up. 

Some of the critics hold that aside from his ghost stories 
and fairy tales, not intended to be natural, otherwise some of his 
plays are held to be very unnatural. 

His long-winded dialogues, although good reading for 
"Literary cultah," are entirely out of date for the modern stage, 
and his verbosity in rhymes, called poetry, no longer pass for 
par. 

turther note is made on his bluntness on immorality, to 
speak so plain and imdisguised on man's chastity and virtue, ex- 
pressions which no modern publishing house would put in print. 

Now the matter in a nutshell, is from what standpoint we 
take the matter in. 

In his day theaters were condemned by the religious people 
and are condemned at this present day by a very large per cent 
of the religious community as being immoral. 

13 



An act is a play, and a play is to amuse a certain class, be 
it sense or nonsense, moral, or what some call immoral, the 
question simply, do the theatergoers take stock in the play. 

He wrote to suit and fit the times of his day. When mor- 
ality was a much thinner coat of white wash than now. As a 
fact, that which may be a virtue in one age may be' a vice in 
another. 

His writings present to us a sociological question, a key to 
learn the exact intelligent and moral conditions of society in his 
day. 

He had a level head to waste no printer's ink to write sense 
when there was no demand for it, no use to conceal man's inner 
thoughts on chastity when he prefers to have them laid bare 
undisguised. 

He had a level head to deal in goods to bring the ready cash 
in hand, and he was well posted to know if one wants to shear 
wool he must understand how to coax the lambs in the fold. So 
he gave his customers the unnatural ghost, because there is 
nothing so natural than for man to be a fool to believe in the 
unnatural. 

The meaning of Ghost comes from the German's Geist, a 
spirit, which the Germans use in a double sense, one for man 
and another for the beer barrel, which is, when the stopper is 
taken out of the bung hole, the Banquo will slip out to kill the 
beer, and when man dies it is said he gives up the Ghost. 

Mr. Banquo is a very tough old customer, and there is not 
the slightest chance that he will hand in his check and give us 
the cold shoulder yet for many years to come. 

Hence the explanation of the sociological question, to deal 
in Ghosts and stock to command a premium, with a smack of 
King Lear, and the Bastard K John on adultery, and some- 
thmg very interesting in all's well that ends well, a side blink in 
Romeo and Juliet. The expression of Prince Henry, Henry the 

14 



1 



IV. and the chief cap of the remarks of Falstafif Merry Wives 
of Windsor, written expressly for the Queen of the Nation 
EHzabeth. 

SHAKESPEARE WAS A SENSUALIST. 

Of late years critics, without any reservation, have come out 
flat footed to call him a sensualist, and some point out with con- 
siderable satisfaction, that he was guilty of poaching in his 
younger days, in company with others. 

Now so far, as for one, in taking game, from another's 
premises is concerned, is a matter of every day occurence in our 
country, which scarcely has the name of being a tresspass, and 
it certainlv stands to reason that in England, where a lord has a 
thousand acres for a pleasure park, and a poor man not one 
foot to raise bread for his children, a poor man's conscience is 
not worth a button who would hesitate to leap over the fence. 

The critics who live in glass houses ought to be careful how 
they throw stones, to call him a sensualist, when they have no 
other evidence than his writings. 

Had he written like a saint, he would have bankrupted his 
stage, and what he did write was sanctioned by public opinion 
and even by the Queen herself, to give him a full house. 

It would have been just as cheap to conceal his own natural 
inclination in his own heart, to practice his pranks in the dark 
and preached holiness, and virtue to others had there been a de- 
mand for it. It would be w^ell enough for his critics to bear in 
mind that m nature there is no sin, that in animal creation that 
the hrst germ of a being of life was the result of a natural force 
(call it sensualism if you please), to remain as an irresistible 
force in the system during the life of the being, for propagation 
of life. 

As Shakespeare says, virtue must be lost before a virgin can 
be born. 

15 



Shakespeare in writing up human nature could not consist- 
ently call Cleopatra a virgin, ignore the fact that Queen Elinor 
called her grandson a bastard, and that Lady Faulcanbridge 
leaped over the moral fence with King Richard. As the saying 
goes, the people are not as good as they used to be. 

In the reign of Richard II. in a quarrel between two royal 
cousins one accused the other ''that the people believed him to 
be the son of a priest, and not of the black prince." 

In view of this uncertainty as to who was a true father, to 
keep up the pure stock, there was a law made in reign Henry 
VIII. to be treason in a woman who had lost her virtue to marry 
a king by concealing it, and as a matter of course the women 
kept silent about these little trifles, so the law was repealed. 

Thus if we consider the atmosphere we can well afford to go 
one eye blind on Shakespeare's bluntness, in some cases, and it 
is only a wonder that he has shown so much modesty to fail, to 
show these matters up far more extensively. 

To give the devil his dues, in his plays, he portrays quite a 
number of women of a high standard of virtue who resisted 
every temptation, as unapproachable, as the rainbow. 

He has given the world the highest standard of virtue, to 
kiss with cast iron lips and an icy breath, an ice cold chastity, to 
be the envy of a priest. 

The fact that modern society has made some progress in 
concealment with hypocrisy to enjoy its spice of life in the dark, 
has not curbed the natural inclination in the least. 

In criticism it is often the case, that it is merely the pot call- 
ing the kettle black — "the eye seeth not backwards," but it can 
get a reflection backwards in the glass which however, remains 
silent, it has no tongue, as a blessing for its own self preserva- 
tion to run the risk being mashed into a thousand fragments. 
There is no proof that he was a libertine^ aside from the thoughts 
in his head, judging by his writings, which if it be a sin, the sen- 

16 



sual thought in ones head, the door of heaven would stand idle 
and its hinges become rusty, for there would be but few ad- 
missions. 

THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD. 

He had a good knowledge of the human system and his 
opinion of the absurdity to cure human ills with medicine ("Art 
can not overcome nature") is m accord with Napoleon, Thomas 
Jefferson and Dr. Franklin. 

He speaks inirony to cure with a horse drench, a medicine 
that will breath life in a stone. Throw physic to the dogs. 

The remark of Falstaff, "I would I might never spit white 
again, ^ has been a puzzle to many to know the meaning, which 
shows what a most remarkable keen observer Shakespeare must 
have been to note that a white frothy spittle a sign of good 
health. To give him his dues, there is one thing worthy our 
most useful study, the general accepted fact that Harvey was 
the first to have made the discovery of the circulation of the 
blood. 

The writer has made this his careful study, and has found 
three coupling links in the chain that Shakespeare was the first 
to have made discovery for all practicable purposes. 

First — Brutus tells his wife that she is as dear to him, "as 
the ruddy drops that visit my sad heart," plain to see if the blood 
visits his heart, it must be in circulation. Julius Caesar, Act ii, 
Scene IV. 

Second — Falstaff in one of his prankish harangues too long 
for quotation, tells in sum and substance how good liquor 
sherns-sack puts life in a man. "Makes it course from the in- 
wards to the parts extreme," which shows the blood in circula- 
tion from inmost parts to the end of the outer extremities of the 
limbs— Henry IV., Act IV., Scene IV. 

17 



Third — K. John in his conspiracy for the murder of young 
Arthur, tells Hubert if from wrongs his system were in a melan- 
cholic condition ''had baked blood and made it heavy-thick, 
which else runs ticking up and down the veins" he (K John) had 
something to tell Hubert if he had heavy-thick blood, to be in a 
fit condition to take a hint about something important, K. John 
Act HI., Scene HI. 

Shakespeare's idea, that a man's actions are dependent upon 
a happy or depressed condition that when there is a free circu- 
lation one feels good and cheerful, but when the mind is under 
a strain to commit a crime the circulation of the blood becomes 
heavy, slow and sluggish, in which he is undoubtedly right. 

It is difficult to see where Liebig-Draper and others who 
follow in the track of Harvey have given any better explanation 
than that of Shakespeare. 

A FINAL RESUME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

The criticism ot the chaff in the bushel has been suffi- 
ciently answered. 

The writer will simply repeat that the unnatural plays were 
perfectly natural for the purposes they were intended to fit the 
time. Nature of man, like a fist on an eye, to be agreeable to his 
vanity, his whims, his monkey nature and his superstitious ideas, 
to suit the mental sickness at the time the plays were written. 

He does not say he wrote for tools, but he does say "What 
fools these mortals be," and "That we are come to this great 
stage of fools." 

Mark he uses the word "we" by counting his own nose, does 
not seem to put the highest confidence in man's intelligence, as a 
matter of course his idea of the stage, nothing more nor less 
than a mere puppet show, as the German proverb goes, "The 
world is a mad house." 

18 



it was held by the ancient philosophers that man was in- 
capable to perceive the absolute truth, which is upheld by the 
modern thinkers who call themselves ''know nothings." 

Man is a very strange animal. Pope says, Man is in doubt 
to judge himself a God or a beast. Schiller makes man half 
angel and half beast, and Shakespeare calls man a centaur — the 
upper part human and the lower part (below the girdle), a beast, 
which seems to be the most correct, to locate the sense in the 
upper and the beast in the lower part. 

Since his time man has made some progress in thought, yet 
he has not yet learned to know when he is right or wrong, what 
one upholds to be right another holds to be wrong, two of op- 
posite opinions each is willing to sign his death warrant that 
he alone is right. 

In truth the only true criticism, as a standard of reason are 
the laws of mechanics, which will accept no blarney on the 
ditterence of opinion on Shakespeare's plays. 

In building the stage every nail, every. stone, every brick 
and every beam, must have its proper strength and be put in the 
proper place, else down comes to the whole business to decide 
the question, but when it comes to acting on the stage there is 
no standard of authority to be simply — difference of opinion. 

It has been predicted that parts of Shakespeare will remain 
for ages and parts will be expunged, as man advances in 
thought. 

His plays will remain the same so long as man remains the 
same, who is as stubborn to change his myths for reason as a 
four span of army mules. 

He had taken his modest expressions and introduced the 
ghost Banqua upon the stage, from a license of the Bible, and his 
chaff in the bushel will meet with no objection in future genera- 
tions, for it is good feed with a little salt. 

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It will be a long rainy day before his majesty, said to have 
a barbed tail, a cloven foot and horns, will resign his office as 
the superintendent of the department of brimstone, fire and hell. 

WAS SHAKESPEARE A SKEPTIC. 

Some who made his marks a careful study, judging from 
the words of his mouth, hold that he was an unbeliever. 

He thunders down on priest with a vengeanance accusing 
them of foul conspiracies and murder. He shows a great con- 
tempt for those of pious pretensions, ''in religion what damned 
error but some sober brow will bless it." He speaks of heaven 
with a doubt, "to meet our friends in heaven if that be true." He 
seems to doubt a hereafter, ''The undiscovered country from 
whose bourn no traveller returns." He calls the deity a "dull 
God." He makes sport of religion, men go to a place of worship 
to pray against their enemies, and Falstafif claims to have been 
corrupted by going to church, and upon his death bed he puts 
the name of the Lord in the mouth of this foul lump to cry out, 
God, God, God. But by Shakespeare's will his heart seems to 
have undergone a change to believe, he assigns his soul to God 
and gives Jesus Christ credit for being his savior. 

Now this looks rather thin, during his life time he shuffled 
his cards with the devil as his right handed bower for trump, and 
when matters come to the final pinch he goes back on the old 
man without giving the devil his dues, a clever trick to say the 
least. 



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